


no need to wake from this dream

by eudaemonia



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, Gentle Kissing, Nightmares, Post-Series, Sharing a Bed, confession of feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-26 15:31:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13238703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eudaemonia/pseuds/eudaemonia
Summary: After all that happened last term, Hecate can’t sleep, but (perhaps not) surprisingly Ada is there to reassure her.





	no need to wake from this dream

**Author's Note:**

> unbeta'd, so all mistakes are my own. these two are DEFINITELY married in canon but also maybe they didn't know that they were? hence this post-series 1 feelings reveal. ~~also this is the first fic i've ever posted don't look at me~~

Hecate woke with a start, unable to catch her breath. She curled in on herself, trying to block out the vestiges of her dreams: images of herself casting much darker magic than she’d ever wanted to, in service to someone that was and was not like the boss she respected so much; Ada’s hands reaching out from the painting but being unable to grasp them, their skin sliding past each other like oil and water; Ada’s whole being collapsing down into a shell and some slime, with a soft but disgusting _squick_ , again and again and again.

She pulled the quilt up and wrapped her arms more tightly around herself and tried to remember that the term was finally, blessedly over and everyone was still alive. Ada wasn’t a snail and Mildred Hubble would not be back in the castle for several weeks and Agatha was trapped in the portrait. She was _fine._

Hecate reminded herself that the Hardbrooms did not do lingering panic or endless nightmares and so there was no need to still be awake, afraid of closing her eyes and letting her mind wander. She took a couple of shuddering breaths and turned to lie on her back, intending to count the cracks on her bedroom ceiling until she was calm again, like she always did when it all threatened to overwhelm her in the late hours of the night.

Except the cracks weren’t there.

She was looking instead at the exposed wooden beams of an unfamiliar room. The moonlight was streaming in through the window, as it should at this time of June, but on the wrong side of the room, and those certainly weren’t her curtains. Come to think of it, this wasn’t _her_ quilt, and _her_ pillowcases didn’t have lace edgings.

A terrifying shiver rose up through her, and she stifled the panic, unwilling to scream aloud yet wanting to all the same. She must have shifted trying to keep it down, because a hand reached out to soothe her, falling still on her hip. Hecate turned her head to look down at a sleeping Ada Cackle cozied up next to her, apparently at total peace.

Ada snuffled and pressed her face into Hecate’s shoulder. Hecate tensed at the feeling. It was a little bit too much like _care_. A little bit too much like _comfort_.

“S’alright,” Ada mumbled.  

Hecate’s breath caught again as she tried to remember why she wasn’t in her own bed. A different series of images rushed into her mind, more positive than the ones that had woken her up: Ada inviting her in for tea after the last of the girls had left; Ada’s eyes sparkling in the last of the summer sun as they talked of nothing, relieved to have no pressing school-related issues to deal with; Ada’s hands coming up to cup her face as she leaned in…

“You’re not relaxing,” Ada’s voice interrupted Hecate’s confused remembering. It wasn’t an accusation. Hecate closed her eyes again against the tide of concern she could feel coming from the woman pressed up against her. 

“I just…uh….” Hecate took a breath. Her nightmares had left her woozy and slow. In her haze as she sought to find the words to explain, another terrifying thought occurred to her, and she twisted away from Ada to look down.

They were both wearing nightgowns, and… no, she didn’t feel like anything… physical… had happened but—

“Hecate?” Ada was sitting up now, one hand covering hers. “What’s wrong?”

Hecate slumped forward to rest her head in her spare hand. Somehow she couldn’t quite countenance removing her other one from beneath Ada’s hand.

“I’m… Nightmares. I guess.” _And also I don’t know how I ended up in your bed!_

As she tried to start the line of questioning that would lead to getting an explanation for that, Ada moved to sling an arm around Hecate’s shoulders. “Oh, dearest. It’s okay. You’re fine. They were just dreams, sweetheart.” 

She continued to murmur endearments and reassurances while rubbing Hecate’s arm. Hecate didn’t deny that that felt… good, but the familiar contact was too much and unexplained. She and Ada were coworkers and good friends and they enjoyed each other’s company, but this didn’t feel like their typical headmistress and deputy relations.

Hecate somewhat rudely moved out from under Ada’s arm, trying to ignore the hurt that briefly appeared in Ada’s eyes. “What’s going on?”

“Hecate, you know I would never want you to do anything you weren’t comfortable with,” Ada began.

“Did we just sleep together?” Hecate blurted out. “Oh my god. I’m so sorry.” She started to get out of the bed in a blind panic, throwing back the covers and swinging her legs over the side.

A warm hand on her thigh stopped her movements. “Hecate.”

She turned to look at Ada, who appeared to be her normal, unthreatening, kindhearted self. Her hair was slightly mussed from sleep, but it caught the light to gleam like pondweed under a full moon, Hecate’s favorite time of the month.

“ _Hecate_. It’s alright.” She reached out to stroke Hecate’s cheek, ignoring the way Hecate flinched before settling into the contact. “Those nightmares must be something serious if you can’t remember. No, we didn’t sleep together. Well, at least not in that sense.” Ada chuckled a little.

“Although last night I was under the impression that you wouldn’t mind if we did,” she continued.

Hecate blushed. More was coming back to her: her lips pressed tightly to Ada’s, soft gasps of surprise and then of delight, whispering “not here” and watching Ada flick the hand not holding her close to transfer them out of her study and into her bedroom.

“I think I remember kissing you, some,” she allowed. “But I don’t…” Hecate gestured vaguely at the bed, their nightgowns, her hair that was no longer tied up in her bun and instead was falling tangled down her back. 

Ada smiled at her bewilderment. “We were talking about chanting technique, of all things, and you were staring at me like I was rarer than fairy dust. Your eyes are so remarkable, Hecate. And it’s not fair to make a girl try to resist sinking into them. So I kissed you. Thank the goddess, you kissed me back.”

Hecate ducked her head, trying to hide her pleased embarrassment. “And then we fell into bed together to… get a good night’s rest?” 

“Well, you seemed happy about this development but also so uncertain. I didn’t want it—us— to be anything you weren’t sure about. And you looked so tired.”

Hecate started to protest, but Ada stopped her. “I know when you’ve been running yourself ragged, Hecate. And you and I both know the way this term ended was perhaps more stressful than we had hoped for. I may have gotten you into my bed under false pretenses, but then you were content to fall asleep. I just magicked you into something more comfortable and joined you.”

“Right. Okay.” Hecate nodded. All reasonable, very above board, good caring stuff. Typical Ada. Nothing to worry about.

She almost mechanically moved her feet back under the covers and leaned back against the headboard. Ada’s whole body seemed to sag with relief at Hecate’s acceptance of the situation, and she leaned back too. 

Hecate glanced over at Ada. She looked about ready to pass out until morning. But Hecate’s mind, now fully awake, couldn’t stop wondering at it all. Kissing Ada was definitely a good and positive thing, that if, she was honest, she had been thinking about for quite a while, before Agatha’s machinations, even. And she knew full well that people who suffered traumatic events together often had strong bonds. It was just… Kissing? Her boss? Who apparently didn’t mind? She put together Ada’s comments about her eyes with the fact that Ada hadn’t kicked her out of Cackle’s ( _yet_ , a tiny part of her brain said).

“Wait, you _wanted_ to kiss me?” she asked into the dark room.

“For a long time, sweetheart,” a drowsy Ada replied.

“What? Since when? Did I… ?” she was working herself into a panic again. Had she been obviously pining after her boss for everyone to see? How long had Ada thought of her like that? How had she missed it?

“Since I hired you, I guess,” Ada said, not really thinking much of it. Hecate gaped. 

“Oh, don’t make that face. You’re a very attractive woman, Hecate. And when you stare at me like that…”

“But—”

“Hecate, I can tell you’ve got a million new worries now, but can we please just deal with them in the morning?”

At Hecate’s abashed look, Ada sighed. “Come here,” she said, pulling her in to kiss her soundly. “There. I like kissing you, Hecate. I like _you._ And you like me. We’ll work out the details later. Okay?” 

Hecate nodded tentatively and leaned in again. They kissed gently for some time, before she pulled back to look at Ada.

“Ada, are you _sure_?” she asked.

“Yes, you daft woman. Now, _sleep_.”

Hecate moved to lie on her back as Ada pulled the quilt snugly around them. 

“What were your nightmares earlier about?” Ada asked sleepily, curling herself around Hecate for the second time that night. “If you want to tell me, of course.”

Hecate considered. The castle wasn’t falling apart. Mildred Hubble was wholly her mother’s responsibility. Agatha was no longer a threat. And Ada wasn’t a snail or trapped in a painting. She was here, right next to her, woman and warm and whole. 

Her dreams, so substantive and terrifying just a short while ago, seemed quite unrealistic and utterly ridiculous now. “Nothing, really,” she said. “Just end-of-term stress, I think. Like you said.”

Ada sighed again, but not unhappily. “I have _got_ to get you to relax this summer,” she murmured as she pressed a kiss into Hecate’s hair.

Hecate smiled to herself. For the first time in a long time, relaxing felt like something she might want to try.


End file.
